Study of a leg 1875 - 1915

Editor: This is "Study of a Leg," a plaster sculpture by Auguste Rodin, created sometime between 1875 and 1915. I'm immediately struck by how incredibly lifelike it is, despite being just a fragment. What kind of statement do you think Rodin was trying to make with this piece? Curator: Well, it’s crucial to understand Rodin's context. He was working within a system where the Salon, and later museums, held immense power. Academic art prioritized the whole, idealized body. A fragment like this leg challenges that. It pulls the classical form into modernity, acknowledging imperfection, even dismemberment. It questions the value systems placed on the complete versus the incomplete. Do you think this fragment would have been seen as revolutionary at the time? Editor: I imagine so. It's kind of defiant, right? Like he's saying beauty can exist outside those established norms. Was Rodin intentionally trying to disrupt the art establishment? Curator: Precisely. The figure, even in its fragmented form, was being reframed as something other than a symbol of wholeness, of strength, of civic virtue. Rodin used the human form as a vehicle to address the growing alienation of man to modernity. He was exhibiting a reality of the modern world, with increasing numbers of wounded and fragmented figures returning from military conflicts, but reframed into a sculptural art piece for aesthetic enjoyment. This sculpture enters the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art after his death in 1917. I wonder what the public would have thought about displaying just a part of a body for public art appreciation. Editor: It really makes you consider the power structures in place, and how artists can subvert them just by changing our perspective. I never considered how institutions play into defining "art" so strongly. Curator: Exactly, the politics of display, the public consumption – it all shapes the work's meaning. Editor: Thanks, I will never look at this in the same way again. It's way more than just a leg now. Curator: Absolutely! I found the socio-political undertones fascinating, and hope visitors reflect on those as well!